Trying to figure out how to reboot perspective is *really* hard. This is what made me start thinking about my chronic depression as a disability, rather than just "a problem".
One thing that helps some folks is meditation. Take some time in which you try to step back from life and living, and just relax. Focus on your breath, or try to concentrate on some nonsense task (I like to imagine stacking blocks - four in a row, then four rows, then four layers, so I end up with a 4x4x4 stack of blocks, and then starting over - but I did this during exercise when I was breathing hard, each breath a block). The important thing is to try to focus your mind. You don't want to nap - you want to meditate. But you want to learn to focus on something that merely engages your mind, and helps it pull away from day to day stresses.
Another thing that helps is something that's related to meditation. Try stepping back from each bad thought/feeling and analyzing it. You feel bad that your pecan shortbread crumbled - why?
Maybe it's just a bad feeling on a bad day, and you're frustrated and, hey, you know, shortbread often crumbles under X circumstances - no wonder it's crumbling.
Or, maybe you have a hard time making non-crumbly shortbread and it's a sign that you still haven't mastered it, and that bugs you.
Or maybe it's the *one thing* you were counting on today to go right, and it didn't.
What you find when you analyze isn't quite as important as the analysis itself. You end up putting it in proper perspective, rather than letting your brain run away with it ("it crumbled, and it's just like everything else in my life, it's all falling apart and everything's awful..."). Because brains do that. A minor rejection - say, a friend canceling lunch plans - triggers memories of other rejections, and if you don't lasso it into perspective, it can make you feel woefully abandoned instead of mildly disappointed.
And it lets you figure out what to do next. Do you just want another pan of hopefully non-crumbly shortbread? Do you want to find out more about why it crumbles? Do you want to enjoy it, crumbly or not, because by-golly this was going to be a nice treat for you today?
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One thing that helps some folks is meditation. Take some time in which you try to step back from life and living, and just relax. Focus on your breath, or try to concentrate on some nonsense task (I like to imagine stacking blocks - four in a row, then four rows, then four layers, so I end up with a 4x4x4 stack of blocks, and then starting over - but I did this during exercise when I was breathing hard, each breath a block). The important thing is to try to focus your mind. You don't want to nap - you want to meditate. But you want to learn to focus on something that merely engages your mind, and helps it pull away from day to day stresses.
Another thing that helps is something that's related to meditation. Try stepping back from each bad thought/feeling and analyzing it. You feel bad that your pecan shortbread crumbled - why?
Maybe it's just a bad feeling on a bad day, and you're frustrated and, hey, you know, shortbread often crumbles under X circumstances - no wonder it's crumbling.
Or, maybe you have a hard time making non-crumbly shortbread and it's a sign that you still haven't mastered it, and that bugs you.
Or maybe it's the *one thing* you were counting on today to go right, and it didn't.
What you find when you analyze isn't quite as important as the analysis itself. You end up putting it in proper perspective, rather than letting your brain run away with it ("it crumbled, and it's just like everything else in my life, it's all falling apart and everything's awful..."). Because brains do that. A minor rejection - say, a friend canceling lunch plans - triggers memories of other rejections, and if you don't lasso it into perspective, it can make you feel woefully abandoned instead of mildly disappointed.
And it lets you figure out what to do next. Do you just want another pan of hopefully non-crumbly shortbread? Do you want to find out more about why it crumbles? Do you want to enjoy it, crumbly or not, because by-golly this was going to be a nice treat for you today?